Texting from the ship

[Disney's Fan]

Originally Posted by Juney

Yes. It is in your settings. On my DROID it is Settings-data usage-turn "mobile data" to off. The iPhone is similar. This turns off any auto updates (like weather apps), downloads, email, etc.

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

Awesome! Thanks so much. I think this is exactly what I need to do, I just didn't know how!

[Ptwolfman]

Will this allow me to send & get texts? Last cruise had no signal the whole trip. Also, I would need the international dialing code?

[Disney Dreams]

Originally Posted by Nikisha421

Yes cell at sea charges everytimemyou turn the phone back on even if you don't answer the call or respond to the text bc it is on a different countries tower...I too learned the hard way

If you turn off data roaming this will not happen (at least with AT&T).

- Dreams

[Namsupak]

You can call and text just turn the data setting to off. You won't have visual voicemail, email, nor the ability to send mms (multimedia messaging service, picture texts). We have ATT and have done this on at least 5 dcl cruises, trips to Europe and Asia, no weird charges beyond the texts and calls we made/received.

Also buying an international package for some voice or texting is okay but keep in mind that with cellular at Sea that is a different animal than the texting or voice on land. Since you are using the ship based towers the texts or calls you make are not using up your international plan. For example you can buy a small package of 50 texts for a set price from ATT but Cellular at Sea texting is still an extra charge. The same with voice, whether or not you have the international service add on the Cellular at Sea service is $2.49.

As to using wifi for texting, its kind of a waste of money, especially if your goal is to text to other iphones on the ship. You would be using the minutes twice as fast, and wifi minutes may be more expensive than the actual texting charges. Sometimes wifi signal is spotty and sometimes it won't connect so just more wasted time. Unfortunately cellular signal is spotty at times too, depending on where you are on the ship remember you are traveling on a 100,000 ton steel cage. Texting on wave phones is just like texting before having the full alpha numeric keyboard at your finger tips.

No international dialing code for texting, there may be an option in the settings for automatic help with international dialing and I pretty sure I have this on so this step may be transparent because of it.

[disneypoor]

I just want to make sure I'm understanding what has been posted also as I had asked a similar question on another thread since DH and I will be sailing without our kids in the fall. If I take my Ipad and my kids have Iphones, will I be able to Imessage them as long as I pay for internet while onboard the ship? Initially, I thought I'd see about calling and texting from my phone, but I'm wondering if using my Ipad might be safer to avoid any additional charges on my phone. Thanks!

Susan

[cyclenut]

Here are a few steps that I think will get you what you need.

First of all remember that while the ship is docked, the ship cell towers are off. If you are boarding in Port Canaveral, for example, you can continue to use your phone just like you do when on land until sail away. When it gets close to sail away then do the following:

Choose Settings then Cellular Data. Look for the Data Roaming setting and then select it to OFF, then select BACK to return to the settings menu.
Next choose WiFi then select OFF.
This will keep the text and phone calls enabled but will shut off all data that could result in charges.

Now, if you want to get real fancy, you can use the do not disturb function. This is pretty cool actually but I have never used it. I just like the features. Here is how it is supposed to work. You can experiment with it before you leave.

First you have to pick the phone numbers you want to receive calls from as favorites. You do this in your contacts. You can select only your kids and maybe one or two others you want to hear from while on the ship. Then you go to Settings and choose the Notifications selection. The first selection there is the Do Not Disturb function. Selecting this will give you a few choices. The first one allows you to set a time when you want Do Not Disturb to be effective. This will turn the function on and off automatically based on the schedule you select. I would suggest leaving this setting OFF, allowing you to turn the function on and off as you wish. The next setting to check is the Allow Calls From setting. That should be set to "Favorites". The final setting is Repeated Calls. I would set this to OFF in your case. Now that this is done, return to the settings menu. There you will see the Do Not Disturb function just above Notifications. This is where you manually toggle the setting on and off.

With the Do Not Disturb function on, you will only receive texts and calls from the people on your favorites list. With it off, the phone will work just like normal.

Word of caution. Some people have reported that they receive a charge of some sort every time the phone wakes up to talk to the cell tower, even if there is no call or text. I have not experienced this, but I have heard about it. Call your carrier in advance and ask. Even though the charges are not coming from them, they should be able to tell you if where you are going would generate such a roaming charge with your particular cellular plan.

You should not need to change mail settings or anything else as long as the data roaming is set to off. Mail uses data. The caution here though is that if you do connect to a free wifi while in port, all of your mail will attempt to sync as soon as you connect. If you don't want that to happen, you should go to mail settings and turn off synchronization. You can do this without removing the account. On our last cruise I turned off mail synchronization for most of my mail accounts except one. I connected to ship wifi periodically to share updates with my kids via email using a little use email account. I bought the basic plan and was able to trade emails daily, needing only the basic plan. Turn wifi on, sync mail, turn it off, read and compose mail, turn it back on for one last sync and turn it back off. Worked like a charm.

Hope this helps!

[cyclenut]

Originally Posted by disneypoor

I just want to make sure I'm understanding what has been posted also as I had asked a similar question on another thread since DH and I will be sailing without our kids in the fall. If I take my Ipad and my kids have Iphones, will I be able to Imessage them as long as I pay for internet while onboard the ship? Initially, I thought I'd see about calling and texting from my phone, but I'm wondering if using my Ipad might be safer to avoid any additional charges on my phone. Thanks!

Susan

iMessage on the iPad and iPhone uses data. In this case I would turn your iPad to airplane mode first. Then when you want to connect to ship wifi, turn on the wifi only. This will leave all cellular connections off, assuming your iPad has a cellular carrier attached to it. You can turn off cellular data separately if you want as Airplane Mode will also turn off GPS.

I use iMessage from my iPad to my wife's iPhone all the time using wifi only so I know this works.

In my earlier post I mentioned a way to use email, which I think could actually turn out to be less expensive, but perhaps not as interactive. It all depends on what you want. You could also try and use facetime from the ship but I would use audio only as the ship connection is too slow for video. This allows you to make a call over wifi without using cellular. Again, it could get expensive as the wifi charges are fairly high, but it wold be cheaper than making a cell call.

I recommend using the email option. imessage works for short messages but you can send and receive more thoughtful messages over e-mail and they can still do that from their phone if they want.

These are things you can experiment with while still at home.

[Namsupak]

In general high bandwidth functions like facetime and skype, do not work on the ship.